Biography

Daniel G. Amen, MD

Daniel G. Amen, MD, is a double board-certified psychiatrist, teacher, and nine-time New York Times best-selling author. Amen is the founder and medical director of Amen Clinics in Newport Beach and San Francisco, CA, Bellevue, WA, Reston, VA, Atlanta and New York City. Amen Clinics have the world’s largest database of functional brain scans relating to behavior, totaling nearly 90,000 scans on patients from 111 countries.

Amen is a distinguished fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, the highest award they give members, and is the lead researcher on the world’s largest brain imaging and rehabilitation study on professional football players. His research has not only demonstrated high levels of brain damage in players, but he also showed the possibility of significant recovery for many with the principles that underlie his work.

Together with Pastor Rick Warren and Mark Hyman, MD, and Mehmet Oz, MD, Amen is also one of the chief architects on Saddleback Church’s “Daniel Plan,” a 52 week program to get the world healthy through religious organizations. After the first year the church lost 260,000 pounds, but weight loss was only one of the stunning side effects of getting truly healthy. Other common effects of The Daniel Plan were increased energy, better focus and mood, and a reduction of many medications for the participants. The Daniel Plan is now being exported around the world to help churches, synagogues, and all religious people get healthy.

Amen is also the host of 9 popular public television shows about the brain and author or co-author of 60 professional articles, seven book chapters, and over 30 books, including the No. 1 New York Times best-seller The Daniel Plan and Change Your Brain, Change Your Life, Magnificent Mind At Any Age, Change Your Brain, Change Your Body, Use Your Brain to Change Your Age, Unleash the Power of the Female Brain and Healing ADD.

Amen’s published scientific articles have appeared in the prestigious journals of Molecular Psychiatry, PLOS One, Nature’s Translational Psychiatry, Nature’s Obesity, Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience, Minerva Psichiatrica, Journal of Neurotrauma, American Journal of Psychiatry, Nuclear Medicine Communication, Neurological Research, Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Primary Psychiatry, Military Medicine, American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis, General Hospital Psychiatry and Resident and Staff Physician.